


those wild charms for you

by Nokomis



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Stakeouts then makeouts, Stephanie Brown is Batgirl, Undercover as a Couple, fake date, waterbottles for the win
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24388711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: “So you’re saying we should go on a fake date and catch a serial killer so that we can have the moral high ground over Bruce,” Jason said. “Just to be clear. That’s what you’re suggesting.”
Relationships: Stephanie Brown/Jason Todd
Comments: 48
Kudos: 342





	those wild charms for you

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Lielabell for making this a better story! ♥

Really, Steph should have suspected something when her day went perfectly. It was glorious. She woke up refreshed, her hair looked amazing, her favorite yoga pants were clean, and she had miraculously actually read the assignment she had a pop quiz on during her ten o’clock class. 

There were even free pretzels being given out on campus, and she was happily eating hers, putting the finishing touches on an essay that wasn’t actually due when Babs sent her a message. _Call me when you’re free._

Steph sighed, looking around for cameras. Probably Babs could see that she was having pretzel time and could call her immediately. She took one last bite and called, wondering what she’d managed to screw up. She didn’t remember any real kerfluffles.

“Steph, good,” Babs said, and she didn’t sound mad, just a bit rushed.

“Yo, O,” Steph said, just to imagine Babs’ reaction, but Babs didn’t take the bait. 

“Listen, Batman is going to be calling you about a case, and I wanted to remind you that you do not have to help if you don’t want,” Babs said. Which, okay. Steph wasn’t exactly known as someone who mindlessly did whatever Batman wanted, and furthermore, Babs had never warned her off like this before.

“Is it that dangerous?” Steph said doubtfully. Batman didn’t call her in on the heavy-hitting cases. Batman didn’t really call her in on _any_ cases.

“Not… as such,” Babs said. “More ill-advised.”

“Sounds like my jam,” Steph said with no small amount of irony. 

Babs muttered something that sounded a lot like, “Hopefully not,” then disconnected.

*

“We have a new serial killer,” Bruce said grimly. He pulled up the case files on the computer, crime scene photos displayed across the giant screen. “Four people are dead, another two hospitalized. We have to stop this.”

After hearing the details of the case, Steph said, “Wait, are you serious? Are we after man door hand hook car door?”

“There are no hooks involved?” Bruce said in a questioning voice, which means that Stephanie Brown gets to explain a meme to Batman in the midst of a briefing. It was a true tragedy that there were no witnesses. Tim was going to be so pissed he missed getting to see Bruce glance briefly heavenward, as though he were questioning all the life choices that led him to this moment. 

“This isn’t a ghost story,” Batman says. “Someone is targeting couples, and they’ve left no clues.”

“So what, are we going to creep on people making out? Because that sounds kinda gross,” Steph said, crinkling her nose. Why did she get called in special just to be a peeping tom?

“We aren’t going to put any citizens in danger,” Batman replied. Steph looked at the pictures of the victims on the screen, and noticed that all the girls were blonde. Crap.

“You want me to be bait, don’t you?” She narrowed her eyes at Bruce. “You could just put Tim in a wig, he’s pretty enough.”

“That would be a poor use of resources,” Bruce said levelly. “I called you in to clear this with you, given who you would be working with.”

Steph looked up at the pictures again. The victims were all college-aged; the girls blonde and their dates more varied in hair and skin color, though all were large. Former high school football players and one amateur boxer. Bruce was too old to fit the criteria, Tim too small -- Steph could do the math on this one. “Red Hood?” she said doubtfully. “He agreed to this?”

“I thought you could present the case to him, if you were amenable,” Bruce said, and… okay. Okay, this was too much. Steph stared at him. “Oh my god, you’re being a chickenshit!”

Bruce didn’t confirm or deny, just stared impassively at her as though her suggestion was so out of line that he didn’t feel as though a response were necessary. 

“I can’t believe you not only want me to be serial killer bait, but you want me to talk to your kid for you.” Steph wasn’t openly laughing at Batman to his face, but it was a near thing. 

Bruce watched her try to contain her mirth for a few more moments, then continued with a steely voice, “I know you and Red Hood haven’t worked together, but the profile suggests that the killer’s attacks are coming more frequently, and tonight might be the next strike.”

‘Haven’t worked together’ was an understatement, if anything. Steph had been in the same room as Jason Todd a few times, but mostly during a crisis and never one-on-one. She was sure they’d spoken, it would be super weird if they hadn’t, but she couldn’t remember anything specific. She remembered Babs’ call earlier, and wondered if maybe that had been a little more deliberate than she would have guessed. She knew that some unkind comparisons had been made between the two of them, especially after Black Mask.

“Ugh, fine,” Steph said, like she was doing Bruce a favor by agreeing to help catch a serial killer. She had a vague feeling that convincing Jason to go along would be harder than the actual crime fighting.

“Thank you,” said Bruce, turning away before she could say anything in response, which proved how well he knew her. She was definitely going to lord it over Tim that she got an actual thanks out of Bruce.

*

“So I talked to B-Man,” Steph told Babs as she returned to the city.

“And?”

“I agreed to be bait,” Steph said. “Do you know Red Hood’s location? Apparently I get to brief him.”

“Really.” Babs’ eye roll was clear through her tone.

“I know, right? I told B he was being a chickenshit and he just gave me that look he gets when he can’t deny it but he sure as hell ain’t admitting it.”

Babs laughed, loud and bright. “Of course you did.”

“But like, why were you so adamant that I shouldn’t do this?” Steph had to ask. Sure, being bait was always a little dangerous, but nothing more than she could handle. Super weird.

Silence for a moment, then, “It’s just that I know you pretty well.”

“And?” Steph prompted.

“And I know Jason, too. You two are…” Babs trailed off, clearly trying to be diplomatic. “You’re a lot alike, and there’s a lot of potential for misunderstandings.” 

“So you think we’re gonna hate each other,” Steph translated, “and thus screw up the mission.”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Babs said. “Jason tends to go for the throat when he lashes out, and he wouldn’t shy away from sensitive topics.”

Sensitive topics like their respective deaths in the line of duty. Babs was careful not to mention it, or the fallout, or her opinion on Steph’s involvement in the whole ordeal, and she thought that Steph couldn’t handle it.

“I’m a big girl. I won’t break,” Steph said firmly. “But it does do a girl’s heart good that you worry about me.”

“Steph--”

“Babs, I’ll be fine. I mean, I’m gonna work with him eventually, right? Might as well be on a fun fake date with no civilians.” Steph kept her tone light. 

Babs sighed. “Fine. Red Hood’s in the warehouse district. Good luck!”

*

As promised, she found Red Hood hanging out on a rooftop in the warehouse district, glaring down at one of the many ridiculous skylights that were found on the older warehouses.

Steph landed behind him heavily enough that he’d know she was there, and took it as a good sign when he didn’t aim a gun at her when he glared at her. Jason’d been murder-free for a while, but he didn’t let that stop him from threatening bodily harm when need be.

Steph held up her hands and said, “I come in peace!”

Jason turned back to the skylight, watching intently. “Kinda busy here. I don’t have time to bail you out of whatever it is--”

“Okay, wow, I didn’t need you to bail me out of anything,” Steph said, stopping just short of proclaiming her own competence, which was the number one way to look incompetent. “I just had a case you could help with, if you’re not busy.”

“Well, I am,” Jason said. Steph stepped up close enough to see who was in the warehouse. No big names; she was pretty sure she recognized a few as street-level dealers. Not really the calibre of criminal that Jason tended to take on these days. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Crime is crime,” he muttered. 

“Wanna catch a serial killer?” she asked. “It’s very exciting undercover action.”

“How exciting, exactly?”

“Um,” Steph said. “You get to play bait with me? Go on a fake makeout date in the woods?”

“And I’m your first choice?” His expression could only be described as a smirk. 

Steph was surprised by the swoopy feeling that inspired, but focused on making this a facts-only mission. “Not mine, no. Bruce did the detective work, and it turns out we fit the victim’s profiles almost too perfectly.”

Unnamed emotions flicked across Jason’s face, and she didn’t know him well enough to know if he was okay with that. “I see.”

“Trust me, I got my share of disappointment when I realized he didn’t call me in on the case because of my skills but because I’m blonde,” Steph said. “The male victims were all big dudes. Athletes. You got picked because of your beefiness, dude.”

Jason mouthed the word ‘beefiness’ like no one had ever called him that before, which Steph sincerely doubted. Well, maybe no one had to his face. 

“And like, I totally agree with you about what a disaster Bruce is as a person, but we probably shouldn’t let people get serial-murdered because he didn’t ask nicely enough. Someone’s gotta be the bigger person.”

“So you’re saying we should go on a fake date and catch a killer so that we can have the moral high ground over Bruce,” Jason said. “Just to be clear. That’s what you’re suggesting.”

Steph nodded.

“You definitely aren’t who I thought you were,” Jason said admiringly. Steph wondered what, exactly, his impression of her had been, but decided she was probably happier not knowing. After all, she absolutely did not want him asking her what her first impression of him was. 

She chose the diplomatic response and offered up her fist to bump. Jason did, and they both did explody-fingers as they separated, so probably this partnership wasn’t going to be the disaster Babs clearly thought it was going to be.

Jason glanced back down at the dealers. “Well, since we’re maintaining the moral high ground here, wanna help smash some faces? They’re discussing their cunning new business plan of selling to ten year olds.”

Steph cracked her knuckles.

*

Jason pulled off the main road to a secluded parking area overlooking the harbor, picked because it was within a mile radius of each of the previous attacks.

It had been noted in the case files that no one had called for help, Steph had a hunch that lack of signal was to blame for that. She checked her phone as soon as the car came to a stop, and yup, no signal on the regular network.

Fortunately, they had access to networks that had much better coverage. She might want to make fun of Bruce for owning his own satellite, but damn if it wasn’t useful.

“In position,” she told Oracle through her comm line. Jason slouched deeper into his seat beside her, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Here’s hoping we get to live out some horror movie cliches tonight.”

“You’ve got that final girl vibe for sure,” Babs said. “Jay, take care of my girl, right?”

“You know I’m just here to look pretty,” Jason teased.

She was pretty sure she heard Babs laugh before turning off the connection.

That left her totally alone with Jason. He was adjusting the mirrors to provide optimal coverage of the area, and Steph turned in her seat, folding a leg underneath her so she had a better view of the woods off to the left of the car. The underbrush was thick there, providing easy coverage for anyone wanting to lurk creepily. 

Uncomfortable as the thought made her, no matter how long she’d been at this gig, she was grateful that at the very least she’d dressed comfortably. They’d agreed to go completely civilian, on the off chance that police ended up impounding the vehicle for evidence, and Steph had embraced that, down to the trendy water bottle. She’d thought about going all-out on her outfit, busting out one of the flirty dresses in the back of her closet that she never actually wore, before thinking about the girls on campus and deciding that less was more. It was entirely possible that she’d overthought things, because despite her bravado, she was nervous about spending alone time with Jason. 

It wasn’t that she wanted to impress him, it was more like… a longing to make sure that they got along. She’d spent so long hearing comparisons. She wanted to see what he was really like.

And besides, taking the killer down in leggings and tennis shoes -- neither being visible from outside the car -- would be infinitely easier than in a dress or heels. She’d taken time on her makeup, had styled her hair down, and the top she wore left enough skin showing that she looked the part of a college girl on a date. Which she was, even. Kind of. Fake dates counted, right?

She considered asking Jason, but honestly, she just didn’t know him well enough to bring him in on her internal monologue. Some journeys were meant to be taken alone. 

Jason was quiet -- nothing she’d heard about him implied he was anything close to the quiet type, but instead inclined to run his mouth and do his best to annoy the hell out of anyone nearby.

“You okay?” she said, stopping just short of poking him in the shoulder like she’d do to Tim or Cass or even Damian. 

“I’m waiting for a serial killer to attack, of course I’m okay,” Jason said, raising an eyebrow at her. “This is my favorite extracurricular.”

“Oh yeah, me too, definitely,” Steph said. “I’m so glad I’m playing bait instead of finishing my lit paper.”

“You go to college?” Jason sounded surprised. Steph tried her best not to take it personally.

“Gotham U,” she confirmed. “They let me in with my GED and appalling transcripts and my inspirational admissions essay about overcoming hardships.”

“But how do you manage it with the night job?”

Steph shrugged. “Sleep is for the weak. Also I refuse to sign up for 8am classes, which helps. I can’t have vigilantism be my entire life, you know? Having a future is… well, you understand. Everything.”

Jason’s expression was wistful.. Maybe his surprise hadn’t been at her own merits, but at the feasibility of college as a vigilante. She thought about the few tidbits that she knew about him as a person, and was surprised he wasn’t pursuing higher education already. “You think there’s a future beyond this?”

“I hope so,” Steph said, “because I, for one, am not interested in dying in the line of duty again.”

Wasn’t it funny, after Babs’ concern, that she was the one who brought up the elephant in the room.

It did startle a laugh out of Jason. “Hey, death jokes are mine. Back off, blondie.”

“Did you just try to pull a _get off my lawn_ on death jokes? Dude,” Steph said. “You’ve gotta get out more. Experience life. Have you tried yoga?”

“If I say yes, will that get me more or less mockery?” Jason asked, and Steph grinned at him, unabashed. 

“Pics or it didn’t happen.” She raked her eyes over him appreciatively.

“Do I seem like the type to have photographic evidence of _anything_ laying around?” Jason’s tone was light but the undercurrent wasn’t. 

“Fair,” Steph said. 

Really, the surprising thing was how easy it was to banter with him. She thought again of Babs’ concern, and was happy that it was apparently misplaced. Jason felt familiar to her, so maybe Babs’ assumption that they were entirely too similar wasn’t off base, but there was enough difference there in attitude that it was easy to fall into a rapport. 

Or maybe she was just that desperate for someone who flirted back. She’d been woefully single for too long, and there was no sign that her fizzled-out relationship with Tim would ever spark back into anything more than the close friendship they shared. Having a real-life boy who knew her true identity joke with her? Really kind of glorious, though she sure as hell wasn’t going to let him know that.

Steph glanced at her phone. Infrared showed that someone was in the woods, crouching a few hundred yards away. She angled her screen so Jason could see, keeping it on her lap so even if the guy had Bat-quality binoculars he wouldn’t be able to see what they were looking at.

“What’s he waiting on?” Jason grumbled. “Why can’t he just try to murder us already?”

“Maybe he thinks we’re too situationally aware,” Steph said. “I mean, I wouldn’t murder us until I was good and sure that we were way too distracted to notice.”

Jason let out an amused huff, not quite a laugh but Steph was still proud of it. The boy needed all the joy he could get. “You think a lot about how you would do murder?”

Steph rolled her eyes. “Thinking and doing are very different things, thank you very much. And like, half of what we do is trying to get into criminals’ heads. It’s why I’m so good at that part.”

“Because you have an overactive imagination?”

“Because I lived the life.” Steph shrugged expansively. “I spent so much of my childhood listening to my dad and his dumbass friends scheming. It was like taking a masterclass in buffoonery.” 

Jason actually did laugh at that. “It was, wasn’t it? I never thought of it like that.”

They both looked at the screen, and the figure was unmoving.

“So I’m going to try something, and stop me if it’s dumb or uncomfortable or whatever,” Steph said, because patience wasn’t exactly her strong suit, and even with Jason sitting there, she couldn’t deny the cold shiver of fear she felt thinking about an actual serial killer just outside their car. 

She unbuckled, and in a movement that was much smoother in her head than in action, she climbed over the center console and straddled Jason, settling a knee on either side of his hips. 

His eyes went wide for a second before he nodded and said, “Verisimilitude. Good plan.”

Steph leaned in, tilting her head so her hair blocked their faces from the killer’s view, and said softly, mostly to Jason’s neck, “Probably the victims were too busy making out to notice his approach.”

She hadn’t thought this all the way through; the steering wheel dug uncomfortably into her back, and even worse, she could feel the heat of Jason’s thighs through her leggings. He rested his hand on her hip, steadying her, and wow, his hands were big. And warm. She let out a soft sigh that immediately embarrassed the hell out of her, because wow, way to advertise she was in a dry spell that made the Sahara look downright tropical.

But then she noticed the way Jason’s own breath wasn’t exactly steady.

“See anything?” he breathed out as she splayed a hand across his chest. 

It was totally wrong to compare him to Tim, though she couldn’t quite help herself -- Jason was so much bigger, features rougher, more like the kids she grew up with. It helped that there was no mistaking the two of them; she doubted she could be this close if there had been any true resemblance beyond hair color. She really had been the odd Robin out in every way possible.

“Nothing,” she replied. “Maybe---” She leaned forward, body flush against his, as she peered over his shoulder. It wasn’t full-dark out, and she could see enough of the woods to tell that the killer hadn’t chosen to approach yet. “Not yet. Hopefully soon.”

“Hopefully,” Jason said, voice tight.

Steph leaned back again so she could see his face. It was so intimate, sitting atop him like this, that she could feel a flush rising on her cheeks that she deeply hoped wasn’t visible in the dim light. 

She was feeling flustered and decidedly uncomfortable, both mentally and physically. At least she could do something about the physical. Steph squirmed a little, attempting to find a way to sit where the steering wheel didn’t dig into her lower back. Jason’s eyes went wide and his hand tightened on her side. “Uh-- can you maybe-- I mean...”

She stopped, brushing forward just enough that-- _Oh_. There was something else she was absolutely not going to compare to Tim. “Sorry.”

The thing was, there wasn’t really anywhere else for her to go, so she just tried to put as much space between their groins as possible and checked her phone again. The creep was still in the same position. 

“Still nothing,” she said, though it felt downright bizarre to be talking about the case when their mouths were mere inches apart. She was hyper aware of the heat of Jason’s body, of the way her knees pressed into his outer thighs, of his thumb lightly moving against her waist, sending sparks through her belly.

“Maybe we should be more convincing,” Jason suggested, his eyes never leaving her mouth.

“Good pla--” and he was kissing her.

She absolutely had not woken up this morning planning on kissing Jason Todd, but she felt like she should send Bruce some sort of thank you gift for setting up this whole stakeout. Jason kissed like the world was going to end at any moment. Steph leaned into it, giving as good as she got as she tangled one hand into his hair -- softer than it looked -- and losing herself in it, serial killer temporarily forgotten.

Jason stroked her side, hand sliding just under the hem of her shirt. His fingers stuttered over scar tissue but didn’t shy away, instead dragging lightly along the extra-sensitive skin around the scars. Steph gasped into his mouth.

The world narrowed into just Jason, all heat and overwhelming contact and the taste of cinnamon. The tension in her body melted away, and she could feel the same happening with Jason, his shoulders softening under her touch. He was a blur of contradictions -- soft skin and hard muscle, easy words and worried eyes -- and Steph found herself wanting to kiss him until he started to make sense.

When they finally broke apart, panting and wrecked, Steph stared at Jason for a long moment, taking him in. Mussed and swollen-lipped looked unfairly good on him; she wondered if she would get to see him like this again.

“Do you think Bruce would prefer flowers or a fruit basket? Or maybe one of those sock of the month subscriptions?” 

“What?” Jason now added sweetly confused to the mix, and wow, he was cute. Steph was going to kiss him again, just as soon as she clarified why she was talking about giving his dad a present. “This stakeout was his idea, and it was like, the best idea he’s ever had. Maybe better than the whole Batman thing, who knows.”

Jason laughed, ducking his head against her collarbone, then kissing his way up her neck as he said, “It’s up there.” He sucked lightly on her neck. “Though we haven’t exactly caught the guy yet.”

“Oh, shit,” Steph said, both because Jason raked his teeth lightly across a particularly sensitive spot _just right_ and because she remembered that they were supposed to be doing actual crime-fighting. “Let me--”

She slid her phone out, checking on the infrared as Jason acquainted himself with the other side of her neck.. 

The guy was gone. “Oh shit,” she said again, this time with dismay.

“What?” 

She had to hand it to him, Jason sharpened up quick. His hands stilled and he pulled away from her skin, leaving behind ghostly shivers. “He’s gone.”

“Gone-gone?” Jason sat up a little, which did fun things to the way their bodies pressed together, though she was too busy trying to scan the woods through the car windows to give the situation the attention it deserved. The windows were slightly foggy, though, which… how long had they been making out? Surely not that long. 

_There_. Steph spotted a rustling to the rear of the car that didn’t match the current wind patterns. “He’s behind us.”

“Okay, I’m gonna--” Jason didn’t finish his thought aloud, just lifted her and guided her towards the passenger seat, angled towards him like they were still making out. He leaned over her, and while some parts of her were far more interested in how close he was than the impending fight, Steph was proud of herself for keeping her focus.

Though, if she was being really honest, horny and anticipating a fight didn’t feel _that_ different. 

“Okay, do you see him?” Steph whispered, conscious of the fact that the killer could now be close enough to hear their conversation. 

Jason nodded, and pressed his mouth close to her ear to say, “Five seconds.”

He kissed her again, and she got to enjoy four full seconds of tingly bliss before hearing the driver’s side door handle click. It was locked, but Steph wondered how many of the victims had forgotten to do so.

They froze, and she could feel the muscles coil in Jason’s arms as he prepared for attack, despite having his back to the killer’s approach. She was at a disadvantage, given that Jason’s bulk was between her and the killer, but she was just as ready to spring into action.

Glass smashed into the car suddenly as the driver’s side window exploded inward. Jason ducked his head against her shoulder and raised an arm to block the worst of it from her, as she squeezed her eyes shut on instinct.

When she opened them again as she shook her head to knock loose any glass particles, she immediately noticed a metallic glint of a blade, and she picked up her metal water bottle and chucked it at the guy at full strength.

It hit him right in the temple, and he slumped over, torso draped through the car window and knife dropping from his now-limp hand.

Jason blinked as he looked over his shoulder. “Did you just take out the guy with part of your basic bitch starter kit?”

“Yep,” Steph said proudly, popping the ‘p’. Maybe weaponizing trends could be her new calling card. It was nice that Jason had noticed her attempt at undercover, too. 

Jason kissed her again, grinning against her mouth, before untangling himself from her. They managed to get out the passenger door with minimal awkwardness, and had the killer zip-tied and ready to go in moments.

The air was cold and crisp, different enough from the interior of the car to make Steph feel like she was waking up from a particularly nice drea. The killer was slumped on his side, face planted into the gravel, but Steph didn’t feel bad for him at all.

She did have a strange feeling, like she needed to be saying something to Jason, but didn’t quite know _what_.

“I vote we let B explain it to the GCPD, since this was his idea,” Steph suggested, more to fill the silence than anything else.

“Delegating the grunt work to the boss. I like your style,” Jason said, but now that they were standing there, out in the open, there was a tenseness that hadn’t been there when they’d been happily making out.

Maybe she should kiss him again? 

The idea was super tempting -- Jason Todd looked stupidly good in the moonlight -- but Steph knew from experience that words were important. Especially if she wanted to make sure that he knew that she was up for exploring this chemistry that they had. 

“I like your style, too,” she said, stopping just short of doing finger guns at him, which… would he find that offensive? Hilarious? She didn’t know him well enough yet to know. 

They both stared down at the killer some more, and Jason rifled through his pockets, coming up with another knife and a small pistol. It felt incredibly, stupidly awkward.

“Okay, so--” Steph started just as Jason ran his hand through his hair and began with, “So here’s the thing--”

They both stopped and laughed. Steph gestured for Jason to go first.

“I know this whole thing was fake,” Jason said, “but I actually really enjoyed it.”

Steph bit back the wild urge to reply _I noticed, big boy_ and instead just nodded and said, “Yeah, me too. Like. Not just the making out bits. Though that was fire, don’t get me wrong.”

_And it didn’t feel fake_ , is what she didn’t add. Jason gave her a little, hopeful smile, and yeah, maybe she didn’t have to say that aloud. 

“Maybe we should do the not-fake version sometime,” Jason said. He looked absolutely ridiculous, because he was scuffing the toe of his boot in the dirt like he was _nervous_ , which was ridiculous. Steph was easily the least intimidating person he knew. She knew that for a fact.

“Sometime like tomorrow night?” Steph said, because concrete plans were key.

“It’s a date.” Jason held out his fist to bump, like when they’d sealed the deal to go out on this fake date, and Steph happily reciprocated. 

She called in the killer to Bruce, like she probably should have _before_ making plans with Jason (date plans!!), and then contacted Babs to let her know it had gone smoothly.

“So smoothly,” she said cheerfully into her communicator.

“Sounds like you guys had a successful bust, then,” Babs said cautiously.

“Definitely!” Steph said. “Got smooched and then coldcocked a serial killer. Definitely a winning evening for Team Batgirl.”

Jason looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh at her, which made her feel warm and happy, despite the chilly air.

“Got sm--” Babs cut herself off with a defeated sigh. “Of course you did. Just for the record I am absolutely uninterested in hearing any more details than I already have.”

“Gotcha,” Steph said. “We’ll just watch over the perp until B-Man arrives, then.”

“Good luck with that,” Babs said as she hung up. Steph beamed at Jason. 

He nudged the killler with his toe, and the guy stayed limply on the ground. Probably he could use some medical assistance, but Steph was going to leave that one for the cops to sort out. But maybe she should include a water bottle on her utility belt. Who knew it could be such an effective projectile?

“Guess we have a little time to kill before he gets here.” Jason said, voice as innocent as he could possibly make it.

“Guess so,” Steph said, stepping closer. She hooked her hands around his neck, and pulled his head down to hers. Kissing him knowing that the intent behind it was absolutely for her? Even better than before. 

And that’s where Batman found them five minutes later.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi [on tumblr!](https://nokomiss.tumblr.com/)


End file.
